Scalar glueball and meson spectroscopy in unquenched lattice QCD with improved staggered quarks

We present results of an exploratory study of singlet scalar states in unquenched QCD using both glueball and meson operators. Results for non-singlet non-strange scalar mesons are also presented. We use Asqtad improved staggered fermions and gauge configurations generated by the MILC collaboration at lattice spacings of .12 and .09 fm. In this formulation, the glueball mass is not significantly different from the quenched value at finite lattice spacing. Significant taste violations are present in the scalar sector. At light quark masses, decay channels complicate the mass determinations. There is some evidence that the non-strange singlet meson lies below the non-singlet meson.Comment: Lattice 2005 (hadron spectrum and quark masses), 6 pages, 4 figure

Pseudoscalar singlet physics with staggered fermions

We report on progress in measuring disconnected correlators associated with pseudoscalar flavor-singlet mesons. This will eventually allow us to compute the masses of the eta and eta' mesons. Flavor-singlet physics also presents an interesting test of the staggered fermion formulation, as disconnected correlators are sensitive to whether the same action governs both sea quarks and valence quarks. It can also help test the validity of the ``fourth-root trick'' used in unquenched lattice calculations where the number of flavors $N_f<4$.Comment: Talk presented at Lattice 2005 (Hadron spectrum and quark masses), 6 pages, 3 figure

Embryo impacts and gas giant mergers II: Diversity of Hot Jupiters' internal structure

We consider the origin of compact, short-period, Jupiter-mass planets. We propose that their diverse structure is caused by giant impacts of embryos and super-Earths or mergers with other gas giants during the formation and evolution of these hot Jupiters. Through a series of numerical simulations, we show that typical head-on collisions generally lead to total coalescence of impinging gas giants. Although extremely energetic collisions can disintegrate the envelope of gas giants, these events seldom occur. During oblique and moderately energetic collisions, the merger products retain higher fraction of the colliders' cores than their envelopes. They can also deposit considerable amount of spin angular momentum to the gas giants and desynchronize their spins from their orbital mean motion. We find that the oblateness of gas giants can be used to infer the impact history. Subsequent dissipation of stellar tide inside the planets' envelope can lead to runaway inflation and potentially a substantial loss of gas through Roche-lobe overflow. The impact of super-Earths on parabolic orbits can also enlarge gas giant planets' envelope and elevates their tidal dissipation rate over $\sim$ 100 Myr time scale. Since giant impacts occur stochastically with a range of impactor sizes and energies, their diverse outcomes may account for the dispersion in the mass-radius relationship of hot Jupiters.Comment: 19 pages, 7 figures, 7 tables. Accepted for publication in MNRA

Glueball mass measurements from improved staggered fermion simulations

We present the first 2+1 flavour spectrum measurements of glueball states using high statistics simulations with improved staggered fermions. We find a spectrum consistent with quenched measurements of scalar, pseudoscalar andtensor glueball states. The measurements were made using 5000 configurations at a lattice spacing of 0.123 fm and pion mass of 280 MeV and 3000 configurations at 0.092 fm with a pion mass of 360 MeV. We see some evidence of coupling to 2 pion states. We compare our results with the experimental glueball candidate spectrum as well as quenched glueball estimates.Comment: 22 pages, 19 figures and 8 tables, minor additions on mixing post-refere

X-ray Bursts from the Accreting Millisecond Pulsar XTE J1814-338

Since the discovery of the accreting millisecond pulsar XTE J1814-338 a total of 27 thermonuclear bursts have been observed from the source with the Proportional Counter Array (PCA) onboard the Rossi X-ray Timing Explorer (RXTE). Spectroscopy of the bursts, as well as the presence of continuous burst oscillations, suggests that all but one of the bursts are sub-Eddington. The remaining burst has the largest peak bolometric flux of 2.64 x E^-8 erg/sec/cm^2, as well as a gap in the burst oscillations, similar to that seen in Eddington limited bursts from other sources. Assuming this burst was Eddington limited we obtain a source distance of about 8 kpc. All the bursts show coherent oscillations at the 314.4 Hz spin frequency. The burst oscillations are strongly frequency and phase locked to the persistent pulsations. Only two bursts show evidence for frequency drift in the first few seconds following burst onset. In both cases the initial drift corresponds to a spin down of a few tenths of a Hz. The large oscillation amplitude during the bursts confirms that the burst flux is modulated at the spin frequency. We detect, for the first time, a significant first harmonic component in burst oscillations. The ratio of countrate in the first harmonic to that in the fundamental can be > 0.25 and is, on average, less than that of the persistent pulsations. If the pulsations result from a single bright region on the surface, the harmonic strength suggests the burst emission is beamed, perhaps due to a stronger magnetic field than in non-pulsing LMXBs. Alternatively, the harmonic content could result from a geometry with two bright regions.Comment: AASTeX, 15 pages, 4 figures. Accepted for publication in the Astrophysical Journal Letter

CO Line Emission and Absorption from the HL Tau Disk: Where is all the dust?

We present high-resolution infrared spectra of HL Tau, a heavily embedded young star. The spectra exhibit broad emission lines of hot CO gas as well as narrow absorption lines of cold CO gas. The column density for this cooler material (7.5+/-0.2 x 10^18 cm-2) indicates a large column of absorbing gas along the line of sight. In dense interstellar clouds, this column density of CO gas is associated with Av~52 magnitudes. However, the extinction toward this source (Av~23) suggests that there is less dust along the line of sight than inferred from the CO absorption data. We discuss three possibilities for the apparent paucity of dust along the line of sight through the flared disk: 1) the dust extinction has been underestimated due to differences in circumstellar grain properties, such as grain agglomeration; 2) the effect of scattering has been underestimated and the actual extinction is much higher; or (3) the line of sight through the disk is probing a gas-rich, dust-depleted region, possibly due to the stratification of gas and dust in a pre-planetary disk.Comment: To be published in The Astrophysical Journa

Airborne bacterial populations above desert soils of the McMurdo Dry Valleys, Antarctica

Bacteria are assumed to disperse widely via aerosolized transport due to their small size and resilience. The question of microbial endemicity in isolated populations is directly related to the level of airborne exogenous inputs, yet this has proven hard to identify. The ice-free terrestrial ecosystem of Antarctica, a geographically and climatically isolated continent, was used to interrogate microbial bio-aerosols in relation to the surrounding ecology and climate. High-throughput sequencing of bacterial ribosomal RNA (rRNA) genes was combined with analyses of climate patterns during an austral summer. In general terms, the aerosols were dominated by Firmicutes, whereas surrounding soils supported Actinobacteria-dominated communities. The most abundant taxa were also common to aerosols from other continents, suggesting that a distinct bio-aerosol community is widely dispersed. No evidence for significant marine input to bio-aerosols was found at this maritime valley site, instead local influence was largely from nearby volcanic sources. Back trajectory analysis revealed transport of incoming regional air masses across the Antarctic Plateau, and this is envisaged as a strong selective force. It is postulated that local soil microbial dispersal occurs largely via stochastic mobilization of mineral soil particulates